Friday, 18 May 2012

Last night I had the privilege of attending and speaking as an invited guest at the Oxford Union. I have already spoken at four university debates, however this was the first one not about pornography. Instead, the motion proposed that "This House would recognise prostitution as legitimate business".

The debate was well attended with some interesting guests on both sides. As well as myself, the proposing team also had Oxford student Elizabeth Culliford, Nevada brother owner, Dennis Hof, and a last minute step-in from the English Collective of Prostitutes called Emma (her last name escapes me, I shall get back to you on that one). On the opposing team: Julie Bindel, authour and co-founder of Justice for Women, feminist activist Finn MacKay and campaigner Ellie Levenson, as well as another last minute addition (whose name also escapes from) of Cambridge University professor and expert in human trafficking.

Unfortunately, I can no longer claim to maintain a winning streak at these debates as the opposing team were victorious in the end. However, I was very satisfied with the contribution I made and with how my speech was received.

As promised, below is a transcript of my speech. Please feel free to add you comments and thoughts on the topic.

'This House Would Recognise Prostitution as Legitimate
Business'

Johnny Anglais

My name is Johnny Anglais.
Someone in this room, however, knows me as Benedict Garrett. Mr.Garrett, in fact, as I was his teacher. Now, I regularly perform as a stripper and in
pornography.

I am also a prostitute.

I am not ashamed of it.
I believe there is a distinction between porn performer and prostitute,
but I have no problem with being called a ‘prostitute’. My main clients are
either women but, more commonly, men who wish to hire me as a ‘gift’ for their
wife or girlfriend.

I am not a prostitute out of any desperate need. Although, like most people who are struggling
to make money in this capitalist system that, rather than promoting a sense of
community and self-worth, is about promoting individual greed and the
accumulation of, through, essentially, whatever means, material wealth, I do
have rent to pay, bills to pay, a dog to look after and I also care for someone
else’s child because they were incapable of doing so without harming him. But I am not destitute or funding a drug
habit. In fact, I know many prostitutes
(they might call themselves escorts, they are prostitutes). Mostly women.
None of them are destitute. Some,
like many people, may have had troubles in their childhood, others not at all,
some well educated, others less so.

Prostitutes are not just poor, defenceless women. I find it rather disingenuous the continual
and disproportionate highlighting of concern that some so-called ‘feminists’ have
for women in prostitution. My concern is
not for women. My concern is for
everyone. I care not what the numbers or
the differentials are between the abuses of women and men in prostitution. The fact that any abuse exists should be
enough for us to be sufficiently concerned for their well-being and a desire to
take action to protect all regardless of their gender. For there are also poor, defenceless men who
have to suffer at the hands of such brutes as Boy George who, back in 2007, reportedly
held a rent boy hostage by hand-cuffing him to a chair and attacking him with
metal chains. Equally, there are
empowered, confident women who are prostitutes and doing it because they enjoy
it and choosing to do it as a REAL option and not because it is their ONLY
option, despite what some ‘feminists’ may have you believe.

This is not to say that I am happy
with the current state of prostitution in this country. I am absolutely not. Of course, there are corrupt and abusive
pimps who treat their prostitutes like little more than slaves. There are women trafficked over from abroad
and imprisoned in properties up and down this land (reportedly over 8,000 in
London alone) and forced to work as prostitutes. There are women, and men, who dangerously walk
the streets, taking their lives into their own hands and never knowing where
they could end up that night, if even still alive. There are women and men who do
it simply out of desperation: to feed themselves, to keep themselves warm, to
support their families or to fund an addiction. There are clients who treat the
prostitute whose services they acquire with little or no respect. But there are bad and risky elements to many
industries. Do we say that fashion is a
non-legitimate business because some companies use child slave labour in
Bangladesh, that we should live in a state of anarchy because some politicians
fiddle their expenses so lets ban them, or that all teachers are perverts because a
few may have slept with their students? Bad
apples does not equate to a rotten crate.
The principle of producing and providing apples is still a good and
well-intentioned one.

Indeed, I too take my own risks as
a prostitute. I may be a 6ft 2in,
well-built, healthy male, but in the possibility, slim or not, of being potentially
confronted by a sadistic, psychotic and deranged individual what protection do
I really have against a knife or a gun?

These are indeed real risks. But many jobs are risky, some riskier than
others. By illegitimising a business and
driving it underground, these risks are not eradicated. On the contrary, these risks become greater. What we need is the creation of a legitimate prostitution
trade that is regulated and where the welfare of its workers is protected.

Some see prostitution as an evil
in our society. Some see it as something
that simply panders to the whims and desires of a still male-dominated
society. I actually see it as a helpful
and important service in our society. I’ve
argued publicly many times that our national attitude to sex needs to change
drastically. Its getting better but
there is still vast room for improvement.
Equally, our attitude to prostitution, the one that treats it as
something sleazy, the people who work in it is as dirty and those who seek its
service as depraved, also needs to be reviewed.

A desire for sexual gratification
is a human need that, although not as crucial as oxygen, food, water and
perhaps even shelter, follows closely behind them and rivals such things as our
need for education, loving parents, physical exercise, leisure time, an active
social life, having people we call friends around us. All of which we could survive without, but
with enormous difficulty, leading to serious voids in our lives, potentially
causing depression, stress, lack of opportunity and so on. Sexual gratification is a human need on this
level.

Many times, a simple wank is
enough as an outlet for our frequent sexual urges. Many are able to share their sex lives with another
and along with it, the intimacy and touch of another, human skin against human
skin, the kissing of lips, and simply being in the company of another human
being while sharing in, what for most people, is a moment of great
vulnerability and self-discovery. Many
people can form loving, intimate and physical relationships with another human
being very easily. Some people however,
struggle (either through lack of confidence, skills or because their
appearance, personality or characteristics renders them less attractive to
many), or go through great periods of their lives without the company of
another. While frequent self-romance may
be enough to satisfy the urges of sexual release at times, often the desire to
share the experience or be in the company, presence and intimate entwine with
another is one which, in my mind, does not need to be denied. Unless you live a life of high moral values
in relation to the sanctity of sexual expression within only the bounds of a marriage,
or unless you choose, or, more likely, have been indoctrinated, to believe the
unquestionable values that have, apparently, been bestowed upon you by some
great mystical, supernatural entity, then the principle of a sexual encounter
within a consensual arrangement should not need to raise concern or any
controversy. If it does, I would suggest
this is the result of such memes as I have aforementioned and not based on a
realistic and rational response to the complexities of human sexuality.

I don’t like marriage or even civil partnerships. I have no problem with long-term committed
relationships. In fact, I have far more
respect for people in long-term relationships who have never entered a legally
binding contract to force them to stay together. If two people really love each other, why on
earth would they need it? For
essentially that is all that a marriage or a civil-partnership really is: a legally
binding contract between two people. I
hate the idea that so much to do with human relationships, and not simply
romantic ones, is brought down to contracts.
But unfortunately it is a necessary reality in so many cases.

The contract between a prostitute and his/her client is, or
at least should be, open and clear: One is
exchanging capital for the sexual services of another. In
many cases, this service is carried out respectfully and received in much the
same manner. Most prostitutes take their
sexual health very seriously and insist on having their clients use protection
or, in my case, ensure I am wearing it. It
is a clear, honest and open contract between two or more consenting adults.

Let’s contrast that situation with the alternative that
occurs every weekend in every town in every bar or nightclub up and down this
land. Let me introduce you to the men
and women of this country who are little more than ‘Prostitutes by Proxy’. I’m sure we’ve all seen it, I’m sure we all
know of people, we may have even done it ourselves. We call it ‘going on the pull’. Men do it.
Women do it. Going out, of an
evening, with the express intent of, without any prior knowledge of who will be
present at the venue, finding a member of the opposite, or same (take your
pick), sex with the sole purpose of having sex with them. And how is it achieved? Frequently, it is by payment. But payment is not usually made directly to
the person with whom eventual sexual activity occurs, it is exchanged with a ‘bar
professional’ for an alcoholic beverage... or two, or three, or.... well,
however many is usually enough to get them into whatever state is required for sexual
conquest. Where is the contract? Where is the consent? Can a contract and consent for such activity
really be sought from someone so intoxicated as to fail to stand correctly or
incapable of pronouncing their own name, let alone remembering yours. How high is the likelihood that these individuals
will a) care about using contraception and b) be capable of putting it on
correctly? What are the chances that one
or both of these individuals may infect the other with a Sexually Transmitted
Infection or impregnate the other?
Judging by our national statistics on these two things, particularly
compared to our European neighbours, I would say pretty darn high.

So, I leave you with this thought. How different might the scenario be if the
same people lived in a society where brothels weren’t treated like sinister,
sleazy centres of smut and filth, but actually seen as useful and regulated services,
where the well-being of its workers were properly cared for, that could be accessed in order to fulfil a basic
human need, perhaps having one on every high street next to your Primark,
Superdrug or JD Sport, where men and women of all ages could go in the moments
of their life where their desire for sexual gratification needed more than
simply a quick tug on the chap or session with the rampant rabbit, where men or
women, for lack of sexual satisfaction in their own relationships, but loving
their partner nonetheless, could seek the sexual fulfilment without the fear of
attachment or greater intimacy that an affair might bring and potentially, in
the long term, holding their marriage or relationship together?

As much as this scenario may make you laugh or sound so
outlandish as to not be easily imagined, I would actually suggest in all
seriousness that, compared to the current situation, living in that society
would create a far more productive, healthy and happy community than the one in
which we currently reside, not to mention one where those who work as prostitutes
are treated decently and their well-being cared for. If we
are able to fight the cultural memes we have all inherited, but some of us have
been able to shed, if we can rise above the irrational, unproven claims of the
god-fearers, if we can begin to actually think about the reality of our society,
the dangers our current national view of sex and anything related to it poses,
often to our most vulnerable, and the complexities of our human sexuality,
rather than the arbitrary rigidity that such memes, traditions and religions
have attempted to impose on us, and begin to fathom how actually a recognition of
the legitimacy of prostitution and an elevation of its reputation would improve
the lives of its citizens then we would, in my opinion, be taking humanity in
the right direction and not a step back.

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Johnny Anglais, the former teacher-turned-stripper-and-porn-star, who hit the headlines last year after winning the right to return to teaching, will be speaking at an Oxford Union debate this Thursday where he will confess to being a prostitute and argue that the world’s oldest profession 'is a legitimate business'.

Since being outed by his pupils in 2010, Johnny Anglais (whose real name is 'Benedict Garrett') has spoken at no less than four university debates. Last year he was the first ever porn performer to speak at the Cambridge Union, as well as Queen Mary College London and Trinity College Dublin twice, each time defending pornography and being on the winning team.

While performing in porn films on Television X and Playboy TV and stripping for the Dreamboys, Johnny also earns cash from working as a male escort or, as he is not ashamed to say, a ‘prostitute’.

“I am not ashamed of it. I believe there is a distinction between porn performer and prostitute, but I have no problem with being called a ‘prostitute’. My main clients are either women or, more commonly, men who wish to hire me as a ‘gift’ for their wife or girlfriend.”

Johnny, who describes himself on his Twitter profile as a “sexual libertarian, perception challenger, 'norm' breaker and fighter for rationale”, aims to focus his argument on the idea that prostitution offers a useful service as an outlet to a human need; that our attitude and perception of prostitutes and those who use their services should change for the betterment of our society and that the contract between a prostitute and client is a far more honest and open arrangement than that between many men and women who go “on the pull” each weekend and become little more than, what Johnny calls, “prostitutes by proxy”.

Johnny will be part of a pro legalising prostitution team that will include Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal and brothel owner and founder of Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Dennis Hof.

They will be arguing against Julie Bindel, author and co-founder of Justice for Women, feminist activist Julia Long and campaigner Ellie Levenson.

As well as universities, Johnny has been an invited speaker on BBC debate shows “Sunday Morning Live” and “The Big Questions” as well as guest on the “This Morning” couch:

“I love being part of debates and tackling controversial issues. Of course, it is satisfying to win, but what is most important is that we are discussing these issues and that we, as a society, are no longer shying away from what some perceive to be taboo topics.”

“We all need to be far more open and honest about issues to do with sex and sexuality in this country, not just for our own sense of identity, but for the health and well-being of our young people.”

“Our traditional prudish attitude and lack of confidence by many parents and teachers to deal with the ‘birds and the bees’ at an appropriate and relevant level has proven to fail our young people. We have the highest rates of STI and pregnancy amongst them in Europe: this needs to change."

“Blaming it on such things as porn and prostitution is simply a scapegoat for our shameful national attitude to sex.”